Pictures and videos of Rage Against the Machine at Coachella can't really begin to explain the bigness of their set. It's like taking a picture of a leaf blowing during a tornado: Sure, it conveys a sense of being windy, but it's a definite understatement.
Rage's reunion show—seven years in the making—was played to a sturdy mass of, at the very least, 60,000 to 70,0000 people; all moving up and down and off the ground, and singing along with every song. Watching that many bodies move in unison is slightly intimidating, but it's also kinda beautiful. Actually seeing tens of thousands of people agreeing on something is rare.
Sadly, after the show, it seems that many of the Rage fans also agreed that throwing their shit all over the place was acceptable. My problem here isn't that I'm wanting to save Mother Earth—because honestly, all the garbage from Coachella combined is like the nail on the small toe on the body of world pollution. My problem is that someone is gonna have to clean this crap up, and that person's probably gonna be Mexican. It's typical bullshit: All day a bunch of spoiled hippies will listen to music about peace and love and then they'll "rage" about how fucked up the government is and how it's an "evil empire" that's not supporting immigrants, and then, after they're off in their beds, immigrants are bending over to clean up their goddamn messes for them.
Editor
Well, I was happy to watch the video you provided until I read the lil blurb you wrote… People who litter are selfish assholes. No matter where there at.
Brilliantly stated, Cord. You just summed up the entire student population where I went to college. People would throw their beer cans on their front lawns saying it would "help the Mexicans because they'll pick them up later and turn them in for cash." Such condescending bullshit.
I think at the end of every music festival they should randomly select 30 people from the crowd to clean up after everything is over. maybe people would be more careful where they threw their trash if the knew they might have to clean it up later.
Great point…
Well Paris and Diaz recycled their trash and went home. heh heh
very good (yet sad) observation.
Amen, Brother!
I've been looking forward to a Rage Re-union for a loooooooong time now, and it's great to see that things went off as well as they did. They will definitely go down as one of the more influentual bands in rock history, and will eternally be one of my favorites.
I think that your post is pretty short sighted regarding the garbage. Inevitably this many people will generate garbage, and most people (including myself) picked up theirs. Compared to other concerts I've been to, this was actually really clean.
Coachella also had a pretty great policy on returning 10 empty bottles to get a new water bottle. It was nice to see so many people picking them up over the three days.
Perfectly stated. This show has increasingly become a pompous and trendy venue. More and more people attending are pretentious and hollow. It's so much easier to pretend you care than actually proving you care.